Moldy

Maybe you shouldn’t have looked in here, after so many weeks

or months? to find your friends talking about God knows and eight or nine expired poetry challenges, that feeling

like skipping church for a year, then sitting in the town chapel singing Christmas carols with strangers—

didn’t you want to cry? and didn’t you stop yourself, a disciplined no? but listen, I’m telling you

yes: find what’s worth saving, a fresh heart beneath all that must

 

A long-lined acrostic dedicated to the long-neglected crew at Yeah Write.

in a dark place

you make the god you want, not of gold
or even paper, but green-warm earth—hail
it as something gifted from the blue.

what is your church? but this slate blue
mountain, bare slopes, trees brushed soft gold,
solitude, song; or fall’s sharp wind, rain, hail,

snow silence. eyes closed, face lifted to hail
pilgrim thought. no room for guilt in sky’s blue:
if the soul lights, burns ember-gold—

I am. (gold-hail prayer in this blue)

Thanks to Christine for the three tritina words.

Call it Not Wasteful

You said we need supplies for slime;
we sank our cash in vats of glue
and thus it’s proved how I love you
for slime dries out, is trashed in time

A goofy memoriam stanza for Yeah Write’s February poetry slam
If you’ve escaped thus far, this is slime.

Once more, with feeling

It is precisely this time, more/less
the pit opens, not underfoot
but close enough to catch you
with tricks of sunlight/shade
fallen leaves, sharp red
beauty, failing—
you can’t help
but glance
in

The Same Darkness

We’ve tried to measure this pit
pace it bit by bit
and examine, and not fear

its black pool. Could we submit
trammel soul to fit—
nothing? For nothing wells here

we slip, fall, fail again; quit
strife for dark (fine grit
of hope chafing deep, unclear)

 

An asefru for Yeah Write’s June poetry slam.

aside from human events

feathered sentinels
on post pre-dawn, full alert—
sun still buds and blooms

 

46 Years

not as from space, warps
or waves, spinning sun
flicker-fading like old-reel film

not in measured metronome tick
bluebottle buzz, creeping clouds
sighing for summer’s slow kiss

but inchworming along
mile on wrinkled mile
head down, determined

on this relentless, arbitrary path

 

Perennial

Tall grasses, hostas
shed drab-tattered winter coats;
birds need nest ribbons.

 

daffodils in waiting

wind flings snow sideways
in loose drifts against fences
green buds wear white crowns

Shadow

hours ago I wrote this now
I don’t know this
writing this crown begging
belief weighing empty

design a spindly flower
seeking sun from black pit’s floor
spindly flower seeking water
in desert stretching drowning

(a ghost won’t need) to touch
anything to touch
with hands confirm
I made this I was here

I was here

This week, Yeah Write offered the prompt, What weighs you down? Mulling that over, drafting this, sleeping on it, I realized that among other things, I was still processing Rowan’s essay.